Mighty Motivator

Bulls head football coach Jeff Quinn takes to the field with characteristic candor and tenacity

Story by Dick Hirsch; photo by Paul Hokanson

There are those who insist that the best time to assess the character
of an individual is not when there is a background of resounding
applause, but rather when things aren’t going too well. Those are the
moments that provide the best insight into the mind and heart of the
person. So it developed with Jeff Quinn, now in his first season as
UB’s head coach of football. Quinn has spent 27 years, every day of
his working life, as an assistant coach at several different universities,
working diligently to polish his craft and waiting patiently for a chance
at the top job at a Division I campus.

That chance came at UB. From the outset the expectations have
been high, since Quinn came highly recommended and with a notable
record, not only for teaching the game, but also for exerting a positive
influence on the players. He had barely finished unpacking when word
leaked out that several Bulls players had left the team and the school,
players who were likely to contend for starting positions. “What’s your
reaction, Coach?” the reporters wanted to know. He answered them in
a manner that captured the attention of his squad of players, as well
as UB fans: “We are very disappointed when players quit. It’s not what
we want ... but we will not leave this program up to the weak, the timid
and the noncommitted.”

People, as they read that statement or saw
the interview on the 6 o’clock news, may
have paused; this guy sounds like the real
thing, a no-nonsense individual who tells it
like it is. Some may have been surprised at
the blunt response.

One person who wasn’t even slightly
surprised was Tom Beck, Quinn’s coach
at Elmhurst College in suburban Chicago
from whom he learned the rudiments of
intercollegiate competition, and who later
hired him as an assistant at another school.

“You definitely know where you stand
with Jeff,” Beck says. “He has always had
certain qualities that separated him from
the others: a combination of intelligence
and toughness, and a tenacity and will
to overcome obstacles and succeed. I’ve
known him since he was a college freshman
and he has always been goal-oriented.”

Initially, the goal line wasn’t his primary
objective, as some aspirations have a
way of evolving as the years pass.

Dentistry gives way to gridiron

One goal was established in the early
1980s at the Quinn household in Downers
Grove, Ill., for son Jeff. He would be a
dentist. Dentistry is a respected profession,
a specialty that provides its practitioners
with a certain status in the community
and the likely assurance of a comfortable
lifestyle. It was his parents’ suggestion,
but Jeff liked the idea, too. He envisioned
himself beside the dental chair, clad in one
of those green smocks, urging patients to
relax as he began probing for cavities and
any other problems with teeth or gums.
As an undergraduate at Elmhurst College,
he was on the traditional academic track
leading to dental school, and doing well
in science-related courses. Then things
changed abruptly.

Quinn remembers it this way:

“I was in a psychology class and one
day the professor asked each of us to consider
and answer this question: ‘What is
your passion?’ Once we decided what our
passion was, she said, we should follow
that passion wherever it took us.

“When I asked myself about my passion,
I realized it really wasn’t dentistry.
It was football and it was wrestling, and
I began to picture myself somehow following
a career in athletics, coaching and
helping others to find their passion and
change their lives.”

At this point, Quinn was already a well–known
figure on the Elmhurst campus, a
beefy and uncompromising player on the
football team, and a swift, tough, unrelenting
wrestler. That day he changed direction.
Although he still retains a fond respect for
dentists and the important work they do,
he decided coaching was his goal. Even
then he was wise enough to understand
it was a challenging and often mercurial
endeavor, but he has never lacked confidence
that he could achieve his aspirations.

From Elmhurst to Buffalo was a long
journey, but it was both eventful and
instructive. Now, in his first role as a head
coach, his passion is at its peak, and it is
his mission to motivate and teach his players.
All the learning, he emphasizes, won’t
be about the Xs and Os used to diagram
plays. Many of the lessons will be useful
in later life, when his former players are
far removed from the gridiron, tending to
family, community and careers.

“I teach more than football,” he said. “I
teach life.”

Quinn makes that statement to visitors
with the same kind of intensity with which
he addresses his players. His jaw is set.
His blue eyes gleam, riveted on his audience.
He gestures with those big meaty
hands, the hands that were his weapons
as a champion heavyweight intercollegiate
wrestler and as a dauntless offensive lineman.
In one of his recurring gestures, he
places one hand on each side of his head,
pointing the thumb, forefinger and middle finger at each temple and then turning the
wrists in a twisting motion, as if turning a
key and locking a door. As he does that, his
eyes widen and he says:

“You’ve got to be locked in.”

Once a person witnesses this expressive
demonstration, it becomes a snapshot
image not easily forgotten; it reflects a total
dedication. He wants the players under his
direction to be totally focused on—locked
in—the task at hand. That applies to the
classroom as well as the football field.

Opportunity takes its time

Quinn says it is his intention to train his
players physically, intellectually, socially
and spiritually. And when he makes that
sweeping claim, it is clear that it is much
more than an idle boast. He means it. He
has heard many motivational speeches
in many different locker rooms during a
long career as a player and assistant coach,
and now, in Buffalo, he is the main attraction
and he has seized control. Becoming
a head coach was always an obvious goal,
but it was a long time coming: 27 years as
an assistant or coordinator, during which
time he was recognized as one of the best.
Indeed, Quinn was one of five finalists in
2009 considered for the prestigious Frank
Broyles Award presented annually to the
nation’s top assistant coach.

His coaching career started in 1984. With
his Elmhurst diploma in hand, he became a graduate assistant at DePauw University
in Greencastle, Ind. Nick Mourouzis, who
retired in 2003 as DePauw’s winningest
head football coach, hired him, and says:
“I was positive from the get-go that this
guy would be successful. He was bright,
intense and enthusiastic, and he proved to
be a great teacher and recruiter.”

From DePauw it was on to Ohio
Northern University, Grand Valley State
University in Allendale, Mich., Central
Michigan University and the University of
Cincinnati, initially coaching both wrestling
and offensive line play, but eventually
devoting his full energy to the offense, with
emphasis on the line. At Grand Valley, he
was hired by Tom Beck, his one-time head
coach at Elmhurst. Both men remember
those two special seasons together, with
the former player now on the staff of his
old coach. Over the years, he was either
offensive line coach or offensive coordinator;
it was during that time that offensive
linemen lost their anonymous status.

“Now everyone knows about the importance
of the offensive line,” says Quinn,
who was the left guard while at Elmhurst,
where he was known for playing at 225
pounds, and for being tough, strong and
nimble, with what players and coaches revere as “quick feet.” “The offensive line
is 50 percent of the game. If the quarterback
doesn’t have time, the offense goes
nowhere.” He has mentored many linemen
who have compiled reputations for speed
and dogged determination.

At UB, it didn’t take long for him to
establish rapport with his players, according
to Josh Violanti, the junior center and
Dean’s List student from Lackawanna,
N.Y., who anchors the offensive line. “You
can tell he cares about the players, and he
is a great motivator,” Violanti says. “We’re
all very excited.”

Bulls season beckons

Quinn, 48, spent 21 years working as
an assistant with Brian Kelly, who in
December left Cincinnati to become
head coach at Notre Dame. He initially
agreed to accompany Kelly to South Bend
as offensive coordinator in a program
with the highest of profiles. However, it
wasn’t too long before opportunity came
knocking, in the person of UB Director of
Athletics Warde Manuel. Their conversations
climaxed when Quinn, with the blessing
of his friend Kelly, changed his mind
about Notre Dame and accepted his first
head coaching job with the UB Bulls.

“Jeff has a really comprehensive perspective
about what it means to coach young
men,” Manuel observes, in describing the
critical factor that resulted in Quinn’s hiring.
“He knows the football side of it, but,
perhaps more important, he has a deep–seated
belief in the mission of mentoring
young men, seeing them through graduation
and preparing them for their future
lives. His pedigree shows that he can bring
it all together, and he exemplifies the kind
of individuals we want coaching at UB.”

What can UB fans expect on the field?
Excitement.

“We will be using the no-huddle, spread
offense. It’s a fast game and often the
opposition finds that difficult to defend
against,” Quinn says. “We really want to
keep the defense on their heels and keep
them off balance and try to attack them
with a lot of different formations with a
high-tempo, fast-paced style. We build
the offense around the type of players we
have ... we adapt, adjust and improvise.”

Quinn brought with him to Buffalo a
cadre of assistants who worked with him
at Cincinnati, who, like Quinn, believe
the players will adjust well to new systems
on both offense and defense. Quinn
introduced full tackling during some
scrimmages, rather than the less physical
two-handed tagging or wrapping. It is an
important aspect of his style of preparation.
He also tapped his wife, Shannon, for
a football-related assignment. Along with
members of the coaching staff, she presented
a preseason program designed for
women, to explain some of the intricacies
of football and suggest ways to enhance
their enjoyment as spectators.

“Football is simple, but it is not easy,”
Quinn likes to say. “Players and coaches
have to pay attention to details, avoiding
the little mistakes that result in losses and
stressing the little things that win games. In
Division I football, all the coaches are good
and they all have the same number of scholarship
athletes and the same techniques.
That is why it is so challenging to win a
Division I game. You need to be locked in
and not be thinking about something else.”